


I'm Just Like You (There's Somewhere Else We'd Rather Be)

by al_ittlebit



Series: She-Rawr [1]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Missing Scene, basically catra indirectly killed angella and i think she needs to know about it, catra and glimmer talk, catra does some soul searching, glimmer gets angry, i am sad angella is stuck there for all eternity and nobody even talks about trying to rescue her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:40:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24253747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/al_ittlebit/pseuds/al_ittlebit
Summary: Glimmer is a prisoner on Horde Prime's ship. Catra isn't. The difference isn't as great as you would think.
Relationships: Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra)
Series: She-Rawr [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757089
Comments: 7
Kudos: 71





	I'm Just Like You (There's Somewhere Else We'd Rather Be)

**Author's Note:**

> Can't believe this show is over so quickly! It was a fun ride and an explicit f/f romance between the two main characters of a show /within/ the show is an absolutely massive win and I am forever grateful to Noelle for it. That said, the season wasn't perfect imo, mainly the handling of Catra's redemption. So I wrote a thing bc I feel strongly enough about it apparently. More on all that at the end.
> 
> This is unbeta'd so expect typos probably.
> 
> Title from I Am A Girl Like You in Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper bc that movie slaps.

Catra watches closely as the clone walks down the empty corridor and turns the corner. When she’s confident he’s gone, she sneaks out of her hiding place in the shadows and approaches the single active holding cell.

The imprisoned princess of Bright Moon glances up at her and quirks an eyebrow.

“You again,” she says.

“Don’t sound so happy to see me, Sparkles,” Catra snorts.

“I won’t,” the princess retorts. Catra leans against the frame of the entrance and smiles to herself. If nothing else is familiar on this giant, cold ship, at least this mutual distaste is.

They lapse into a silence that can’t be described as comfortable, so much as _comforting_.

"So, what would you be doing if you were back on Etheria right now," Catra asks, "and not, y'know, a prisoner on an alien ship?"

"I guess maybe…" Glimmer pauses to think about it. "Maybe I'd go teleporting all around Etheria, visiting the other princesses in their kingdoms. If it were a really perfect day, Bow, Adora and I would be having a sleepover." She huffs a small, sad laugh and continues, unaware of how Catra's heart speeds up at her words. "We'd raid Bright Moon's kitchens for cake and then we'd eat it with our hands right off the platter."

"We used to have those," Catra says quietly.

"What?"

"Sleepovers. Me and Adora, when we were cadets in the Horde." She feels a soft twinge at the memory of a time where she actually remembers feeling happy. "We'd play tricks on Kyle, stay up all night whispering about- y'know, whatever."

"Did Adora still thrash around all night and, like, sleep fight?" Glimmer giggles. "What was that about?"

Catra's lips quirk up and before she can stop herself she's giggling with the enemy.

"She always did that! Adora can't even relax when she's asleep."

They laugh together and Catra feels warm in a way she hasn't for a long time.

"I miss them," Glimmer sighs, as their laughter dies down. "I was so awful to them the last time we saw each other. I'd do anything to go back and make it right."

Catra stays silent, afraid to admit the same.

“Remember when we were trying to kill each other?” Glimmer suddenly speaks again.

“Yeah, good times,” Catra chuckles and Glimmer smirks in agreement.

“If I told myself back then that I’d be talking to you and _not_ trying to get my hands around your neck she’d think I’d gone crazy.”

“Oh please, like you could,” Catra scoffs.

“Really?” She raises an eyebrow. “Because I seem to remember you running scared from my _sparkles_.”

“I wasn’t scared, I had a plan! I was just…keeping you distracted!”

“Yeah, okay, you can keep telling yourself that,” she giggles.

“Not like it matters anyway,” Catra snaps. “We both still ended up on an alien spaceship.”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “Guess that’s what you get when you activate a portal and almost destroy the world even though everyone told you not to.”

“Huh,” Catra muses. It hadn’t occurred to her that they had done the exact same thing. “Maybe we’re not so different after all, Sparkles,” she snickers. 

It’s a harmless enough statement, she thinks, but the princess evidently disagrees.

“I am _nothing_ like you,” she spits venomously. Catra frowns and looks up, surprised to see the aggressive stance the princess has assumed, face twisted with rage and disgust. It raises Catra’s defenses immediately.

“What, you still think you’re better than me?” She retorts. “Face it, Sparkles, we both almost destroyed Etheria and now we’re both stuck on this ship alone because of it.”

“Except _I_ wasn’t trying to destroy Etheria, I was trying to save it! From _you_ and the rest of the Horde and all the awful things you were doing to innocent people!”

Catra hisses and digs her claws into the energy field separating them.

“What does it matter _why_ you did it? You think anyone’s gonna care?”

“It matters because I was trying to do something good!” She punches the barrier but Catra stands her ground. “I know I messed up but I was trying to do something good. Do you know even what that means? Have you ever done a single good thing in your life? People _died_ , Catra! _My mother died because of you!”_

Catra jerks back as the princess falls to her knees and sobs angrily. She wants to leave, wants to turn and run but for some reason she’s frozen in place watching her weep. 

Obviously she knew people were dying. The more the rebellion’s numbers depleted, the more power the Horde gained - the more power _she_ gained. She was willing to do whatever it took to get to the top and prove that she could do it without Adora. But as a force captain, she hadn’t spent much time face to face with civilians whose towns they took. She didn’t think she would care but now, being accused as _responsible_ for the death of someone’s loved one…she feels an ache on her jaw and a memory of a distant dream…

_You made your choice, now live with it._

Eventually Glimmer’s sobs subside and she sits back on her heels. Her shoulders are slumped and she looks up at Catra.

“Why did you do it?” She asks. The rage and disgust are gone - she just looks tired now. “Etheria was your home too. If you had destroyed it the Horde wouldn’t win either. So why did you do it?”

“I-” Catra opens her mouth but her voice catches in her throat and her breath begins to come quickly. Her chest feels tight and she clutches it, the dig of her own claws stinging painfully.

“Catra?” Glimmer frowns. “Are you okay?” 

Catra stumbles backwards. As she realises her feet have remembered how to move, she turns her back on the prisoner and runs. She runs as fast as her legs will carry her, claws digging so deep they draw blood from her chest and she keeps running, until there is enough distance between her and the holding cell that she feels able to breathe again. Then she leans against the wall and slides down, covering her mouth as hot tears spring to her eyes.

***

Glimmer stares up at the stark white ceiling of her cell. Like she does everyday. Not that there’s such a thing as days when you’re imprisoned on an alien warship in the middle of space. She has no sense of time. She has nobody to talk to. She is utterly alone and she has nobody to blame but herself.

For the millionth time, she dreams about the moment she decided to travel to the Fright Zone. She dreams of stopping her younger, foolish self, of warning her about the Heart, about not listening to her friends. It was stupid to think she could control that kind of power. It was even more stupid to take that risk, no matter how desperately she wanted to end the war. And now here she is, drifting in space, alone.

Well, not entirely alone. Although it has been some…days? Weeks? It has been a while since Catra came to see her. Not that she wants Catra to visit her. She hates her for her role in the war, and especially for what happened to her mother. But Glimmer can’t deny that there was some comfort in seeing a familiar face that wasn’t endless Hordak clones. She doesn’t regret anything she said, though, and if Catra has decided to stay away because of that then so be it. Glimmer would rather be alone than pretend she’s okay with the atrocities Catra committed on Etheria.

It’s still lonely, though.

The energy barrier hisses quietly and Glimmer sighs and sits up to receive her breakfast/lunch/dinner. However instead of the expressionless clone she had come to expect, holding the tray of food is a nervous-looking Catra who won’t meet Glimmer’s eye.

“You’re back,” Glimmer says lamely, pointing out the obvious.

“I brought your meal,” Catra responds equally lamely, pointing out the equally obvious. She sets it down at the foot of the bed and retreats to the corner of the cell, arms crossed and posture stiff with her tail curling around one of her legs.

Glimmer pulls the tray closer and picks at the alien foods on the plate. One item is wrapped up in deep blue leaves and Glimmer unfurls them to reveal what appears to be a wedge of the cake-like treat they were served last time Glimmer was let out of the cell. She raises a questioning eyebrow at Catra, whose eyes quickly dart away.

“I thought maybe…I dunno, you said you liked that stuff, or whatever,” she mumbles. Glimmer did say that. And yet.

“You know this doesn’t make up for my mother being gone,” she says flatly and Catra flinches, eyes growing wide as they flick to and away from Glimmer.

“Of course I know that, I wasn’t trying to-” she cuts herself off and sighs, raking a clawed hand roughly through her hair. “I can’t fix that. I just wanted to do something…I dunno…nice, I guess.”

Glimmer continues to stare at her and Catra squirms beneath her gaze.

“Look, if you don’t want it you don’t have to eat it, just leave it on there and I’ll-”

“Thanks…Catra,” Glimmer sighs and Catra watches her take a bite and grunts in acknowledgement. She says nothing more though, so Glimmer continues to eat and they remain in an awkward, tense silence.

Catra breaks it first.

“I don’t know,” she says. Glimmer waits for her to continue but she doesn’t seem inclined to. 

“Don’t know what?” Glimmer prods.

“Why I did it.” She uncrosses her feet and recrosses them again. “Or…I do, sort of, but it’s…dumb. You wouldn’t get it.”

Glimmer pushes her tray away.

“Try me. Tell me the dumb reason my mother is dead.”

Catra flinches again.

“I should go,” she says, making to leave. “Are you done? I should take it and go-”

“Catra,” Glimmer calls firmly and she stops, back turned to her, shoulders pulled up high. “Please. You owe me this much.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” Catra snaps, yet she still doesn’t leave.

“Please,” Glimmer tries again.

Eventually Catra sighs and returns to the corner she seems to have claimed as her own.

“Fine, but you’re not going to be happy with it.”

“I don’t think there’s any answer you could give that I would be _happy_ with.”

Catra nods at that. She closes her eyes and mutters something.

“What?” Glimmer asks. 

“I was sick of losing to Adora!” Catra finally yells and Glimmer jumps. “Growing up in the Fright Zone it was always Adora this, or Adora that. She won everything. Shadow Weaver loved her, the other cadets loved her, and then she got chosen for force captain and all this time I was nothing but worthless baggage holding her back in everyone’s eyes. When she left I thought I could finally prove that I could be just as good as her, I could be the best force captain they’d ever seen. 

“But even then, Shadow Weaver was still obsessed with getting Adora back. She even left the Horde to follow her. Left me. And Hordak didn’t even care how far I had taken the Horde. He didn’t care how many victories I won. Adora got lucky in a few battles and everything I had achieved didn’t matter because I lost a few times. I was sick of it and I just thought that if I could do this, if I could pull off this plan for the Horde then maybe _finally_ people would realise that I was just as good as Adora. But of course it didn’t work. Once again, Adora’s the hero and I’m…nothing. I have nothing.” She slides down to the floor and pulls her knees up to her chin, face tucked into the crook of her elbow.

“I- ” Glimmer stares in shock as several conflicting emotions swirl within her. She is absolutely furious that one person’s petty insecurity is the reason she will never see her mother again. And yet…

“I get it.” Catra’s head snaps up and Glimmer is equally surprised at the words that have just come out of her, but she pushes on nonetheless. “I mean, I think you are a horrible, horrible person to not care about the outcome of your actions just because you wanted to prove a point.”

Catra grimaces. 

“You don’t have to tell me that-”

“Just shut up and listen,” Glimmer snaps and, surprisingly, Catra does. “I still think you’re a horrible person. But I do get it. The thing with Adora. I’ve been fighting in the rebellion for as long as I can remember. I was made a commander as soon as I turned 18. But Adora stumbles into the rebellion and she’s the promised hero, the saviour of Etheria, all hail She-Ra. And it was fine, mostly, because my mom was still the leader of the rebellion so it wasn’t like Adora had any more authority than I did. 

“Then my mom died and I became the queen of Bright Moon and that meant I was now the leader of the rebellion. But everyone turned to Adora to lead and she just…did. She just took over. I don’t think she even knew she was doing it, I think it just comes so naturally to her but it just constantly felt like she was undermining me, like nobody took me seriously, and it _sucked_. And I think that’s part of why I was so desperate to use the Heart to end the war. I felt like I was failing as leader - I mean, we lost Salineas and all the coastal villages. I think part of me thought that if I could be right about this, if I could use this and beat the Horde then people would finally take me seriously as queen. And look where that got me.”

Glimmer looks up to see Catra watching her with a stunned expression.

“You…” she says slowly. “Also wanted to be as respected as Adora?”

“I guess I did, yeah.” They stare at each other in shock and then suddenly Glimmer feels a wave bubble up inside her and she bursts into uncontrollable giggles. There’s something ridiculous about finding common ground with the ex best friend of your (potentially ex) best friend on a floating hunk of metal in the middle of nowhere in space. Soon, Catra quietly joins her and they’re both laughing at the absurdity of it all.

“I guess you were right,” Glimmer says when she’s finally able to repress the laughter. “I guess we’re not so different after all.”

“We are, though.” Catra turns her face away again. “You’re a good person who made a bad choice. I’m a horrible person. You said it yourself.”

Glimmer rolls her eyes.

“Only because you keep choosing to be.”

Catra frowns at her.

“What do you mean? You think I _like_ being this way?” She asks defensively.

“People aren’t born good or bad, we have to choose to be. I mean, you think I’m a good person who made a bad choice. Well, I’ve made many bad choices. But I’ve also made more good ones. At least, I like to think I have. The point is, the only way to be a good person is to choose to do good things. The only reason you’re a horrible person is because you keep choosing to do horrible things. Nobody is making you do them.”

As Glimmer speaks, Catra’s brow furrows deeper and deeper, like she genuinely had not considered that it was as simple as making different choices. Her eyes take on a faraway look for a while, before she blinks away whatever daze she was in and refocuses on Glimmer.

“I, um,” she begins. “What happened to your mom?”

“Seriously? _You_ opened the portal-”

“I know, I know,” Catra interrupts. “But I thought Adora fixed it. Everyone else who died or whatever in that weird alternate reality came back. _I_ died there but I came back. I thought everyone did when Adora fixed it.”

“Everyone _did_ come back, but-” Glimmer feels her eyes begin to well up and she quickly turns away to hide her sniffling. “But Adora didn’t fix it - my mother did. Someone had to go into the portal and remove the sword. Mom chose to do it so Adora wouldn’t have to. She did it knowing it meant she wouldn’t be able to leave.” The tears spill over as she thinks back to the last time she saw her mother. The last time they spoke in the real world had been an argument in which Glimmer had called her paralysed by fear. But in the end her mother was the bravest person she had ever known.

“I’m…sorry,” Catra finally says after a long silence. The word is awkward in her voice, like she’s not used to saying it, like her mouth struggles to shape around it’s unfamiliarity. But Glimmer has run out of empathy.

“What are you sorry for,” she scoffs glumly. “Not like you care.”

It’s another long moment before Catra responds and Glimmer almost wonders if she’s left.

“When we were kids, Adora always looked out for me,” is what she says when she speaks again. “As annoying as it was that she always had to play the hero, I did sort of count on the fact that no matter how bad I messed up, she’d always fix it for me. And because I knew that, I never really had to think too hard about what I did. It didn’t matter what I did because Adora would clean up. I guess I didn’t realise I relied on that so much and when she left the Horde I was still kind of relying on it. So, I’m…sorry that I didn’t really think about what I was doing and that led to your mom…”

Glimmer realises what Catra is talking around. She’s never had to take responsibility for her actions because Adora always did. It reminds her of her relationship with her mother - of how she constantly embarked on reckless missions because her mother was always there to make the hard decisions. But that’s too many similarities to think about in one day and Glimmer is exhausted from the whirlwind emotions she’s felt. All she wants now is to sleep. She tells Catra as much and the latter nods and moves towards the bed to take the tray. Glimmer lies down and turns to face the wall.

“Do you want me to bring you breakfast tomorrow?”

A pause.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I actually have multiple qualms with the writing of Catra's redemption but I only touched on a couple here. One of them is the fact that from what I remember of S1, Catra's issue wasn't just that she was upset about Adora leaving, she was also frustrated about Adora always being the hero and stealing the spotlight. So, yes, she wanted to feel loved but that wasn't /all/ that there was to it. If it was just about feeling loved, then she had that with Scorpia in S3. She had made a new life for herself in the Crimson Waste and she had Scorpia's love. But she still went back to the Horde bc she wanted that victory over Adora. She wanted to prove that she could beat Adora. I think that's an important facet of her character that wasn't really addressed. I think it's something Glimmer also deals with, albeit to a less intense degree.
> 
> Another thing is that I feel like the season kind of forgot that Catra wasn't just mean to her friends, she was complicit in an empire terrorising an indigenous population. She /knew/ all along that what the Horde was doing was bad and she just didn't care. She doesn't show any remorse for her role in the Horde. I always thought that the choice to make her fully aware of the Horde's wrongdoings made her a fascinating character and I was really looking forward to see how they'd redeem her for this but they just...didn't really address it. So I tried to explain it in a way that made sense to me, which was that she just hadn't really thought about it that deeply. Catra never learned to take responsibility for her actions bc Adora was always there to clean up her messes. So even when Adora is gone, Catra just doesn't consider the direct link between "if I work for the Horde, people die bc of /me/. I am directly responsible for their deaths." So when Glimmer basically tells her that she killed Angella, it's a wake up call for her.
> 
> I am also very upset that Catra doesn't say the words "i'm sorry" to Scorpia bc I think Scorpia really deserves an apology for how Catra treated her and I think it's good that Catra feels sorry, but it's also important to SAY IT. But that's a whole other issue so. Yeah. Hope someone out there enjoys this.


End file.
